I spent five years at Forbes writing about business and leadership, attracting nearly one million unique visitors to Forbes.com each month. While here, I assistant edited the annual World’s 100 Most Powerful Women package and helped launch and grow ForbesWoman.com. I've appeared on CBS, CNBC, MSNBC and E Entertainment and speak often at conferences and events on women's leadership topics. I graduated summa cum laude from New York University with degrees in journalism and sociology and was honored with a best in business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) in 2012. My work has appeared in Businessweek, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Aesthete and Acura Style. I live in New York City with my husband and can be found on Twitter @Jenna_Goudreau, Facebook, and Google+.

'Bend, Not Break' Author Ping Fu Responds To Backlash

Last week, I published what I believed to be a story of one woman’s triumph against incredible odds. Ping Fu, founder of tech company Geomagic, which is in the process of being acquired by publicly traded 3D Systems, penned the new memoir Bend, Not Break (Portfolio/Penguin), detailing her story as a child during China’s Cultural Revolution who was separated from her parents, tortured and raped, assigned to work in factories rather than attend a formal school, and eventually deported to the US to make a new life for herself as an entrepreneur. Since the publication of my piece, first in English and then in Chinese on ForbesChina.com, along with coverage by othermediaoutlets serious questions have been raised in the Chinese blogosphere and elsewhere about Fu’s credibility.

Writers on my blog have been critical too. Commenter Fugang Sun wrote: “I experienced Culture Revolution and know a lot horrific stories happened in that era in person…. However, most of the stories listed in article are faked.” In the same vein, another skeptical commenter wrote: “There are already many voices questioning the validity of Ms. Fu’s story. From my view and experience it may very well be what it is: a story.”

I followed up with Fu to get her response to the backlash. To accusations that she exaggerated or fabricated parts of her story, Fu says there were subtleties that were lost between the American and Chinese audiences. One point of contention was that a child would not have been sent to a “labor camp” (my word choice). Fu says in China this literally means a prison camp for forced labor and is inaccurate. However, she says she did live alone beginning at age 8 with her younger sister in a one-room dormitory at an evacuated university campus controlled by the government. She confirms that instead of going to school she was assigned to factory work at age 9. The press release for the memoir refers to her as a “child soldier” and a “factory worker.” However, Chinese critics questioned how she came to be a child factory worker, saying it was a prized job during that period. Fu responds that she was not a “worker” in the traditional Chinese understanding because she was not paid for this work and did it in lieu of formal schooling.

It also raised eyebrows that she said she had been exiled or deported from China, when there is no official record of it. When I asked her to address it, Fu says “exile” is not the correct word, despite that it’s used in the press release being sent to media members to promote her memoir. The release first states “Ping was deported,” and later repeats “Ping was exiled.”

“In the beginning of the book I said the Chinese government quietly deported me,” she says. In fact, it is the first line. “We could say that was a literary interpretation. I was asked to leave. My father helped me to find a visa to the US. I was told not to talk about it or to file for political asylum. My interpretation was I involuntary left China….If someone wants to say this is not deportation, fine. That’s my interpretation.” Who asked her to leave? “The police,” she says.

When I first interviewed her, Fu described being taken in by the police shortly before her college graduation, not being able to graduate and being asked to leave the country. She said, “I was told to leave, and I had two weeks.” I looked back at the timeline she presented and noticed that there was a span of six to seven years between when she took her Suzhou University entrance exam (1977) and arrived in the US (January 1984). When I asked her to confirm it, she says she didn’t start college until the fall of 1978, which she says would have put graduation in the fall of 1982, and that she got in trouble with the police in 1983. I asked: Isn’t there a timing gap of a year? “That’s true. That’s a good question,” Fu says. “Let me go back and verify that one.”

Late last night, Fu’s publicist emailed me that they “confirmed that Ping started school in 1978 and left school in the fall of 1982 after being held by the government. She arrived in the U.S. on January 14, 1984.” So she was at home for over year before the police asked her to leave China? “The government asked Ping to leave a couple of weeks after her release,” the publicist wrote me. “However, getting a passport was very difficult, if not impossible, at that time. Even though Ping was asked to leave China, she had to wait for an official passport to be issued.”

When asked how she would respond generally to the criticism, Fu says: “Whatever the report, they should go with my book. Most people complaining have not read my book.” As of now, however, the book has not been translated or distributed in China.

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Good job, Ms. Gourdreau. Please follow up with Mr. Fu more questions, such as in her book: “On one occasion, the Red Guards … and another quartered by four horseman on a soccer field…”. This is such a bold lie — In the area she lived, the only horses that you could found will be coming from a zoo or a circus. Also, was she a red guard herself? There is a picture provided by herself says she was: http://www.fastcompany.com/3004166/bend-not-break-leadership-lessons-resilience-amid-struggle

That pic clearly shows she’s not a Red Guard. She’s the girl from second right, the girl on her right is wearing a Red Guard armband but she is not, as can be seen from the fabric of her shirt on her left arm.

Could you please ask for a copy (or reference–title of the article, publisher, date, issue number, etc.) of the newspaper article by Ms. Fu that offended the government? I believe that she should have kept a copy since it changed her fate. One commentator (Fangzhouzi) said that he checked The People’s Daily during that period but could not find anything about it.

I have the same question. She said the thesis (or the story of her writing such a thesis) was published in a very famous Shanghai local newspaper and later in People’s Daily. This very thesis led to herself exiled to U.S. (or, as she said, being told to leave the country).

Where is this paper? Or the newspaper holding the reporting? Anyone in China has any memory of such a piece? Please ask Ping Fu to provide the name of the newspaper. The name of newspaper is enough to check out whether this thesis/reporting, together with all her reasons of percecution ever existed.

more detail from her Inc. interview (2005/12/1): http://www.inc.com/magazine/20051201/ping-fu_pagen_3.html

Ping entered the university in Suzhou. She hoped to study business or engineering, following in the footsteps of her engineer father and accountant mother, but the Party directed her to study English as a second language. Any sort of learning was a glory for Ping. She read Anna Karenina in translation and grew interested in journalism. A professor suggested that she go out to the provinces and research a rumored epidemic of infanticide. Ping accepted the assignment.

For two years she traveled through rural China, visiting hundreds of towns and villages, interviewing hospital staffers, barefoot doctors, and citizens. The national practice of killing infant girls had long been tacitly acknowledged, but never fully investigated. Ping proved an able reporter–curious, meticulous, resourceful, compassionate. There was no explaining or forgiving the crimes she documented and often witnessed. Because the state had ordered that parents were permitted only one child, however, and because tradition enforced an ironclad, son-centered patrimony, Ping did not judge her compatriots.

In 1980, she delivered her findings to her professor. A few months later, in January 1981, Shanghai’s largest newspaper published a report based on Ping’s research. The report was widely praised, although credit, of course, accrued to senior government officials. The story was subsequently published nationwide in People’s Daily, then picked up by the international media. Which was when the trouble started.

The global community was outraged. The United Nations imposed sanctions on China. Earlier, when the report had been deemed a success, it had proved convenient for Chinese officials to overlook the contributions of the student who had gathered the data. Now that the report had provoked an international human rights scandal, however, it proved convenient for the government to identify and condemn the student, and to throw her into Nanjing prison.

After a seemingly endless period of isolation and darkness, Ping heard boots drumming the corridor outside her cell, the lock turning. She was led to a room where the light blinded her. Through dry lips she asked how long she’d been confined, and was amazed to learn that it was just three days. Ping was weak and disoriented. She assumed her execution was at hand. An official sat behind a desk.

“You must never say a word about your involvement in this project,” the official told her. “You are forbidden to engage in any political activity. You will never return to China, but your family remains here. If in any way you disobey these instructions, your family will suffer the consequences. Have I made myself clear, Comrade?”

Thanks for providing the reference. Inc’s article caused me to be more suspicious:

1. She learned English in college for years and the result of learning is three words. What happened with her or with the education？

2. Her research. Is it possible for an undergrad to carry out such an investigation in the early 1980s, for two years? Would people agree to be interviewed and just tell her everything? How could it be possible for the university to manage its students that way in the early 1980s? Which professor directed her investigation(the name should not be difficult to find)? How could a single professor be so powerful in the early 1980s to make such a suggestion to an undergrad? Was the professor punished for giving her the suggestions? Where did the fund come from to support her two-year investigation?

3. The UN sanctions on China in early 1980s. Does anyone has memory on that? Does anyone knowing about China’s status in th UN believe that? (Dr. Fang has pointed out this)

4. The publication on Wenhui and People’s Daily. Now it becomes easy: People can search the two news papers from Jan. to Feb. 1981 and see if they could find the article (even it is published in others’ names).

She entered US on 1984 Jan, She become US citizen 1992. She must have green card since 1987. She married 1991（US citizen）。

1987 green card can NOT via marriage. How comes she get green card in such short time only 3 year?

The only way is asylum. In order to get asylum status approved, She must make false statement to immigration asylum office on 1987!!!!

All her story about abuse, rape, in prison, children workers, expile, deport, everything are fake. The only reason she make those fake statement to immigration is to get asylum green card!!!

Jean, please contact immigration asylum office to pull out the fake statement she made on 1987. If the asylum office statement she made is same statement as her book says, as your article says. This would be serious violate the Federal immigration Law!!!! This is serious CRIME!!!! Even it was 1987!!!!

US people can’t tell she is a lier, but any similar age people grow up in China would easy know she is a BIG liar.

If she lie to immigration service to get green card, ok, but know she lie to the whole world!!! We got to stop her. President Obama should know he hire a such liar. Fake statement to immigration is a CRIME.

All her excuse are not established without evidence. You need to provide the evidence about the newspaper article.

If she tell the truth, she don’t have to remember anything. Otherwise, A liar needs a good meåmory.

Good point. People’s Daily (or Renmin Ribao in Chinese) was and is a newspaper in China just as important as a combination of NYT+WSJ+Washington Post in the USA. If it were me, I would never forgotten the date when such an important newspaper publishing the result of my college research, or even mentioning my name. For a university as small as Suzhou University where Ms. Fu was studying, it would also have become a breaking university event, as soon as they knew the news that People’s Daily had published one of their female undergraduate student’s research.

She said she studied Chinese literature, not English literature : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ping-fu/clarifying-the-facts-in-bend-not-break_b_2603405.html

Also the US, under President George W. Bush, did withhold $34 million to $40 million a year over seven years from the U.N. Population Fund in the early 80′s. lobbyist Steven W. Mosher helped persuade the administration to do this with his book on infanticide in China.

To hoogw: Calm down a bit. She got her green card by marrying an American on Sept. 1, 1986 (see http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/true-or-false-the-tussle-over-ping-fus-memoir/ ). You case just collapsed. Now do you still want President Obama to intervene? :)

To cover one lie she has to tell 10 more, to cover 387 lies, you do the math. Dear Jenna, I admire your courage to face and communicate with a cheap liar who believes insulting average American’s intelligence for her unspeakable benefits is one of the easiest tasks to accomplish, and tarnishing china is always the lowest fruit to pick. To Forbes, if you still have one thread of integrity of journalism left, please show us by admitting “we were wrong”. The media world has already been filled with lies and deceptions. There are many professional liars and cheaters who produce well made, high quality lies. We really don’t have time for lousy liars like Ping Fu. Thank you.